How Becoming a Doctor Almost Destroyed Me!

Why are you here? Why do you get out of bed every day? Why did you commit an entitlement Saturday to be here? Why do you look the way you do? Why do you feel the way you do? I want you to think about the answers to those questions as you sit here today. Okay? Every day as an OB gyn, I see women who are tired, frustrated, overweight, peeing their pants. They're at their wit's end. They don't know what's going on with them. They feel like they're on an emotional roller coaster. If that sounds familiar, maybe it's your wife. For the few men who are here, maybe you've already figured this out and you've come out on the other side healthy and vibrant. Well, that's awesome. You can go home now because I don't have anything for you. But even if you have figured it out, you probably still have days where you struggle and, you know, fall back into your old traps. Why am I here? Why do I keep learning and studying my butt off? Why am I putting myself out here today for possible ridicule and judgment? Because you need me, too. Because I. And passionate about helping women regain their health and happiness. Because the traditional medical system failed me. And I don't want it to fail you. So do you all remember the 80s? It was pretty awesome. Diet cola named Tab. I told everybody it was named after me. Dunkin Donuts. We all got microwaves, right? We started eating pizza rolls. And then my favorite creation of all time, the Dairy Queen Blizzard. I ate sugar and dairy like it was my job. My day was focused on scrounging up enough money to get a Dairy Queen Blizzard or go down to the corner market for candy. Like I seriously had an addiction. That was my thing. So. So anyway, when I was 15, I'm just going to share my story. When I was 15, I went on birth control pills. And When I was 17, I had a baby. I know that doesn't make sense. Nobody told me that when you take antibiotics, your birth control pills don't work very well. So looking back, obviously that was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. But at the time, I was scared to death. So I ended up dropping out of school, out of high school, after 11th grade to stay home and take care of my kid. But I realized quickly that wasn't going to work. I needed to figure out how to take care of myself and her, support us. I was on Medicaid, food stamps, and wic, and that just wasn't going to cut it long term. So I Went to night school. I got my ged, and that gave me the ability to go to a community college. So I went to college, and I realized I actually liked school because in the right environment, I was thriving. I had professors who believed in me. I actually started to believe in myself. So I took classes for two years, and I transferred to Michigan State. Go Spartans. So while I was at the community college, I worked as a nurse in a nursing home. Back then, I was like, 100 pounds soaking wet. So you can imagine that I quickly developed chronic back pain. I also suffered depression. And then I started having difficulty swallowing, and I was losing weight, and I really shouldn't have. So I was eventually diagnosed with Hashimoto's thyroiditis. It's an autoimmune disorder. My doctor put me on Synthroid and sent me on my way. So once I was at Michigan State, I began the long, unhealthy, sleep deprived journey of becoming a doctor. Yay. I was living the dream. During my first year in medical school, my toes started going numb. I was like, what the heck's that about? Turns out I had a second autoimmune disorder called Raynaud's syndrome. As time went on, I got really bad heartburn. I was freaking out. So I had to go to the GI specialist, have this special scope done. And they said, oh, my gosh, you have reflux esophagitis. You need protonics. Okay. Couldn't have been that 10 cups of Starbucks I was drinking every day to study and function? No. And here's a topic I'm sure you all want to hear about, especially the men. My bowels, My diarrhea was so out of control that I literally ran out on patients a few times because I almost didn't make it to the bathroom. Like, it was horrifying. So I went to the doctor, and they said, oh, you have irritable bowel syndrome. You just need bental. Okay. I broke down. I could barely function. I finally admitted I had depression. And who wouldn't? I was 25 years old, on five medications. Like, it was overwhelming. So do you know what they did? They put me on Prozac. It was awesome. Here's the thing. Not one doctor stopped to tell me that everything I was dealing with was from my stressed out lifestyle, my horrible diet, my miserable marriage, or my lack of sleep. Not one physician stopped to talk to me and connect the dots and find the root cause of my problem. They just kept giving me another pill for another ill. So by the time I was in the throes of Residency. My symptoms were out of control. Let me just tell you, becoming a doctor is the unhealthiest profession a person can enter. It's really sad. The hypocrisy of taking care of other people while. While sacrificing yourself is idiotic. That's what we do. We're praised for holding our bladder and doing surgery. When we're sleep deprived and skipping meals, you develop this delusion that what you're doing is so good and so right, in reality, it's super harmful and not sustainable. In 2017, I finally cracked, pun intended, because I broke my back. I started running to relieve stress, but I injured myself. For a year, I walked around thinking I had a torn hamstring and why. Why won't this damn thing heal? Then my calf started going numb. I was like, you dumbass, you have a herniated disc. So I went to the surgeon. He said, oh, yeah, it's ruptured. You need surgery. You need six weeks off. You know, I was like, six weeks? What? I can't do that. I'm an obgyn. I'm on call every third night. I have six children. I'm. You know, this is crazy. My loved one said, you have to do it. You can't function. But let me just tell you, it was so hard. I felt like I was abandoning my patience and being so selfish. Raise your hand if you've ever ignored your pain, avoided necessary surgery or something important because you thought the world was going to fall apart because you were going to take care of yourself. Like that is what we're trained to think like, God forbid we take care of ourselves. So I finally took the plunge. I had surgery. I was good patient. I didn't mother. I didn't surgery. I didn't deliver babies. I didn't do anything for six weeks. And in traditional medical fashion, I came back and was on call for five nights straight. The third night, delivering babies, I re injured my back and I couldn't move. Let me tell you, my depression flared the fuck up. Sorry, Megan. My bowels were a mess, and now I'm on pain meds every day. I did the unthinkable. I took four months off of work to figure myself out. I was so disenchanted with the conventional medical system failing me at every turn that I finally found this world of functional medicine. I started reading books and research and, you know, listening to podcasts. And I realized food is nutritious and healing. There's movement, meditation, and spiritual awakenings and herbs and Chinese medicine and all of These things. Things I knew nothing about. More importantly, I learned about the devastating effects of the standard American diet. What the rest of the world calls the SAD diet. That's fucking sad. I learned about the toxins we ingest daily, the medications that give us new symptoms and illnesses, and how big industry actually controls the studies that get done and published which directly affects how your doctors practice medicine. I want you to let this sink in. Your body is not a savings account. It's a chemistry experiment. You can't deposit the standard currency time and time again and expect to make any gains. Calories in, calories out. Remember that? That's a bunch of crap. I lived on Dairy Queen blizzards for dinner thinking I was okay because, oh, I'm less than 2,000 calories a day. I'm fine. What's of the day? The rest Problem. We are complex living human beings. We have millions of chemistry reactions going through us at every second. We coexist with millions of bacteria, viruses, parasites. We require vitamins, minerals, nutrients, sun, movement, love, relationships, and a purpose to flourish. I am here to tell you that the food you eat absolutely determines your state of health, mental, physical and emotional. It absolutely matters what and how you eat, how you move your body, what you inhale, what you expose your brain to. It matters how you have relationships with your friends. Instead, stop to acknowledge a higher power and purpose in your life. That SAD diet I was living on, the medications I was taking, the alcohol I was ingesting, the relationships I was ignoring. My lack of sleep was a recipe for a disaster. So please stop and take a moment to think about your daily life. Because if you were living at all like I was, I guarantee you are going to get an autoimmune disorder and heart disease or cancer. That is just how physiology works. We need to start respecting the complex nature of our bodies and how it interacts with the environment. We are not meant to live on crap crafted by craft and Coca Cola. We're not meant to be indoors without sunlight and movement and nature. We aren't meant to move mindlessly throughout the day, never processing conversations we've had or why we failed at something for the umpteenth time. We are meant to communicate, to collaborate, to create and to connect. Your return to happiness absolutely begins with food, with movement, with connection, with appreciation and purpose. We need to get back to our original download as a species. So I have four mini challenges for you. Number one, Stop half attempting drastic food diets or looking for the magic pill. Go back to eating real, whole organic food. If it grew from the ground and had a mama and isn't doused in pesticides, it's probably healthy for you. You need to eat the rainbow. You need to eat a variety of colors every meal, every day. That's just how it works. So add a new veggie once a week, and in a couple months, you'll have a new palate. If that seems impossible to you, then you need it the most. Diana. Number two. Start moving your body with purpose. Tell God thank you for the ability to walk and go out and walk every day for a week. See how you feel. Number three. This is my biggie. Make sleep a priority. Think of sleep as your job. You can't just call in and not go to your job. Right? You need to sleep for eight hours every night. If you want to get paid in good physical, mental, and emotional health, you need to show up and do your sleep job. And if you're like me with an autoimmune disease, you might need 10 or 12 hours to feel rested. Tell yourself it's not up for negotiation. If you can't sleep, come to Preva. Find someone who will help you sleep, because you will not be healthy unless you're sleeping. And last but not least, consider attacking your personal demons that are deep in your heart, the ones that hurt too much to handle on the daily. So you just shuffle them down and ignore them. But that day never really comes. Because I promise those issues smoldering inside of you are making you sick in more ways than you realize. But here's the good news. You're here today to work on that shit. So congratulations on taking the leap. You deserve health. You deserve happiness. So I want us to just come back to how we were meant to. To be. And I'm supposed to have my beautiful, sweet. Oh, my gosh. She's like the sweetest girl ever. Miss Holly Cole, come talk to us about giving. You're going to pour out your checkbooks after you see her.